THE INSURRECTION OF 1798—THE WEXFORD INSURRECTION.
The most formidable insurrection, indeed the only really formidable
one, broke out in the county of Wexford, a county in which it was
stated there were not 200 sworn United Irishmen, and which Lord Edward
Fitzgerald had altogether omitted from his official list of counties
organized in the month of February. In that brief interval, the
Government policy of provocation had the desired effect, though the
explosion was of a nature to startle those who occasioned it.
Wexford, geographically, is a peculiar county, and its people are a
peculiar people. The county fills up the south-eastern corner of the
island, with the sea south-east, the river Barrow to the west, and the
woods and mountains of Carlow and Wicklow to the north. It is about
forty miles long by twenty-four broad; the surface undulating and
rising into numerous groups of detached hills, two or more of which are
generally visible from each conspicuous summit. Almost in the midst
flows the river Slaney, springing from a lofty Wicklow peak, which
sends down on its northern slope the better known river Liffey. On the
estuary of the Slaney, some seventy miles south of Dublin, stands the
county town, the traveller journeying to which by the usual route then
taken, passed in succession through Arklow, Gorey, Ferns, Enniscorthy,
and other places of less consequence, though familiar enough in the
fiery records of 1798. North-westward, the only road in those days from
Carlow and Kilkenny, crossed the Blackstairs at Scollagh-gap, entering
the county at Newtownbarry, the ancient Bunclody; westward, some twenty
miles, on the river Barrow, stands New Ross, often mentioned in this
history, the road from which to the county town passes through
Scullabogue and Taghmon (_Ta'mun_), the former at the foot of
Carrickbyrne rock, the latter at the base of what is rather
hyperbolically called "the _mountain_ of Forth." South and west of the
town, towards the estuary of Waterford, lie the baronies of Forth and
Bargy, a great part of the population of which, even within our own
time, spoke the language Chaucer and Spenser wrote, and retained many
of the characteristics of their Saxon, Flemish, and Cambrian ancestors.
Through this singular district lay the road towards Duncannon fort, on
Waterford harbour, with branches running off to Bannow, Ballyhack, and
Dunbrody. We shall, therefore, speak of all the localities we may have
occasion to mention as on or near one of the four main roads of the
county, the Dublin, Carlow, Boss, and Waterford roads.
The population of this territory was variously estimated in 1798, at
150,000, 180,000, and 200,000. They were, generally speaking, a
comfortable and contented peasantry, for the Wexford landlords were
seldom absentees, and the farmers held under them by long leases and
reasonable rents. There were in the country few great lords, but there
was little poverty and no pauperism. In such a soil, the secret
societies were almost certain to fail, and if it had not been for the
diabolical experiments of Lord Kingsborough's North Cork Militia, it is
very probable that that orderly and thrifty population would have seen
the eventful year we are describing pass over their homes without
experiencing any of the terrible trials which accompanied it. But it
was impossible for human nature to endure the provocations inflicted
upon this patient and prosperous people. The pitch-cap and the triangle
were resorted to on the slightest and most frivolous pretexts. "A
sergeant of the North Cork Militia," says Mr. Hay, the county
historian, "nicknamed, _Tom the Devil_, was most ingenious in devising
new modes of torture. Moistened gunpowder was frequently rubbed into
the hair cut close and then set on fire; some, while shearing for this
purpose, had the tips of their ears snipt off; sometimes an entire ear,
and often both ears were completely cut off; and many lost part of
their noses during the like preparation. But, strange to tell," adds
Mr. Hay, "these atrocities were publicly practised without the least
reserve in open day, and no magistrate or officer ever interfered, but
shamefully connived at this extraordinary mode of quieting the people!
Some of the miserable sufferers on these shocking occasions, or some of
their relations or friends, actuated by a principle of retaliation, if
not of revenge, cut short the hair of several persons whom they either
considered as enemies or suspected of having pointed them out as
objects for such desperate treatment. This was done with a view that
those active citizens should fall in for a little experience of the
like discipline, or to make the fashion of short hair so general that
it might no longer be a mark of party distinction." This was the origin
of the nickname "Croppy," by which, during the remainder of the
insurrection, it was customary to designate all who were suspected or
proved to be hostile to, the government.
Among the magistracy of the county were several persons who, whatever
might have been their conduct in ordinary times, now showed themselves
utterly unfit to be entrusted with those large discretionary powers
which Parliament had recently conferred upon all justices of the peace.
One of these magistrates, surrounded by his troops, perambulated the
county with an executioner, armed with all the equipments of his
office; another carried away the lopped hands and fingers of his
victims, with which he stirred his punch in the carousals that followed
every expedition. At Carnew, midway between the Dublin and Carlow
roads, on the second day of the insurrection, twenty-eight prisoners
were brought out to be shot at as targets in the public ball alley; on
the same day Enniscorthy witnessed its first execution for treason, and
the neighbourhood of Ballaghkeen was harried by Mr. Jacob, one of the
magistrates whose method of preserving the peace of the county has been
just referred to. The majority of the bench, either weakly or
willingly, sanctioned these atrocities, but some others, among them a
few of the first men in the county, did not hesitate to resist and
condemn them. Among these were Mr. Beauchamp Bagenal Harvey of Bargy
Castle, Mr. Fitzgerald of Newpark, and Mr. John Henry Colclough of
Tintern Abbey; but all these gentlemen were arrested on Saturday, the
26th of May—the same day, or more strictly speaking, the eve of the day
on which the Wexford outbreak occurred.
On the day succeeding these arrests, being Whitsunday, Father John
Murphy, parish priest of Kilcormick, the son of a small farmer of the
neighbourhood, educated in Spain, on coming to his little wayside
chapel, found it laid in ashes. To his flock, as they surrounded him in
the open air, he boldly preached that it would be much better for them
to die in a fair field than to await the tortures inflicted by such
magistrates as Archibald Jacob, Hunter Gowan, and Hawtrey White. He
declared his readiness to share their fate, whatever it might be, and
in response, about 2,000 of the country people gathered in a few hours
upon Oulart Hill, situated about half-way between Enniscorthy and the
sea, and eleven miles north of Wexford. Here they were attacked on the
afternoon of the same day by the North Cork Militia, Colonel Foote, the
Shilmalier Yeoman cavalry, Colonel Le Hunte, and the Wexford cavalry.
The rebels, strong in their position, and more generally accustomed to
the use of arms than persons in their condition in other parts of the
country, made a brave and successful stand. Major Lambert, the Hon.
Captain De Courcy (brother of Lord Kinsale), and some other officers,
fell before the long-shore guns of the Shilmalier fowlers; of the North
Cork detachment, only the colonel, a sergeant, and two or three
privates escaped; the cavalry, at the top of their speed, galloped back
to the county town.
The people were soon thoroughly aroused. Another popular priest of the
diocese, Michael Murphy, on reaching Gorey, finding his chapel also
rifled, and the altar desecrated, turned his horse's head and joined
the insurgents, who had gathered on Kilthomas hill, near Carnew. Signal
fires burned that night on all the eminences of the county, which
seemed as if they had been designed for so many watch-towers; horns
resounded; horsemen galloped far and near; on the morrow of Whitsunday
all Wexford arose, animated with the passions and purposes of civil
war.
On the 28th, Ferns, Camolin, and Enniscorthy were taken by the
insurgents; the latter, after an action of four hours, in which a
captain, two lieutenants, and eighty of the local yeomanry fell. The
survivors fled to Wexford, which was as rapidly as possible placed in a
state of defence. The old walls and gates were still in good repair,
and 300 North Cork, 200 Donegal, and 700 local militia ought to have
formed a strong garrison within such ramparts, against a mere
tumultuous peasantry. The yeomen, however, thought otherwise, and two
of the three imprisoned popular magistrates were sent to Enniscorthy to
exhort and endeavour to disperse the insurgents. One of them only
returned, the other, Mr. Fitzgerald, joined the rebels, who, continuing
their march, were allowed to take possession of the county town without
striking a blow. Mr. Bagenal Harvey, the magistrate still in prison,
they insisted on making their Commander-in-Chief; a gentleman of
considerable property, by no means destitute of courage, but in every
other respect quite unequal to the task imposed upon him. After a trial
of his generalship at the battle of Ross, he was transferred to the
more pacific office of President of the Council, which continued to sit
and direct operations from Wexford, with the co-operation of a
sub-committee at Enniscorthy. Captain Matthew Keogh, a retired officer
of the regular army, aged but active, was made governor of the town, in
which a couple of hundred armed men were left as his guards. An attempt
to relieve the place from Duncannon had utterly failed. General
Fawcett, commanding that important fortress, set out on his march with
this object on the 30th of May—his advanced guard of 70 Meathian
yeomanry, having in charge three howitzers, whose slower movements it
was expected the main force would overtake long before reaching the
neighbourhood of danger. At Taghmon this force was joined by Captain
Adams with his command, and thus reinforced they continued their march
to Wexford. Within three miles of the town the road wound round the
base of the "three rock" mountain; evening fell as the royalists
approached this neighbourhood, where the victors of Oulart,
Enniscorthy, and Wexford had just improvised a new camp. A sharp volley
from the long-shore-men's guns, and a furious onslaught of pikes threw
the royal detachment into the utmost disorder. Three officers of the
Meathian cavalry, and nearly one hundred men were placed _hors de
combat_; the three howitzers, eleven gunners, and several prisoners
taken; making the third considerable success of the insurgents within a
week.
Wexford county now became the theatre of operations, on which all eyes
were fixed. The populace gathered as if by instinct into three great
encampments, on Vinegar Hill, above Enniscorthy; on Carrickbyrne, on
the road leading to Ross, and on the hill of Corrigrua, seven miles
from Gorey. The principal leaders of the first division were Fathers
Kearns and Clinch, and Messrs. Fitzgerald, Doyle, and Redmond; of the
second, Bagenal Harvey, and Father Philip Roche; of the last, Anthony
Perry of Inch, Esmond Kyan, and the two Fathers Murphy, Michael, and
John. The general plan of operations was that the third division should
move by way of Arklow and Wicklow on the Capital; the second to open
communication with Carlow, Kilkenny, and Kildare by Newtownbarry and
Scollagh-gap; while the first was to attack New Ross, and endeavour to
hasten the rising in Munster.
On the 1st of June, the advance of the northern division marching upon
Gorey, then occupied in force by General Loftus, were encountered four
miles from the town, and driven back with the loss of about a hundred
killed and wounded. On the 4th of June, Loftus, at the instance of
Colonel Walpole, aid-de-camp to the Lord Lieutenant, who had lately
joined him with considerable reinforcements, resolved to beat up the
rebel quarters at Corrigrua. It was to be a combined movement; Lord
Ancram, posted with his militia and dragoons at the bridge of
Scaramalsh, where the poetic Banna joins the Slaney, was to prevent the
arrival of succours from Vinegar Hill; Captain McManus, with a couple
of companies of yeomanry, stationed at another exposed point from which
intelligence could be obtained and communicated; while the General and
Colonel Walpole, marched to the attack by roads some distance apart,
which ran into one within two miles of Corrigrua camp. The main body of
the King's troops were committed to the lead of Walpole, who had also
two six-pounders and a howitzer. After an hour-and-a-half's march he
found the country changed its character near the village of Clogh
(_clo'_), where the road descending from the level arable land, dips
suddenly into the narrow and winding pass of Tubberneering. The sides
of the pass were lined with a bushy shrubbery, and the roadway at the
bottom embanked with ditch and dike. On came the confident Walpole,
never dreaming that these silent thickets were so soon to re-echo the
cries of the onslaught. The 4th dragoon guards, the Ancient Britons,
under Sir Watkyn Wynne, the Antrim militia, under Colonel Cope, had all
entered the defile before the ambuscade was discovered. Then, at the
first volley, Walpole fell, with several of those immediately about his
person; out from the shrubbery rushed the pikemen, clearing ditch and
dike at a bound; dragoons and fencibles went down like the sward before
the scythe of the mower; the three guns were captured, and turned on
the flying survivors; the regimental flags taken, with all the other
spoils pertaining to such a retreat. It was, in truth, an immense
victory for a mob of peasants, marshalled by men who that day saw their
first, or, at most, their second action. Before forty-eight hours they
were masters of Gorey, and talked of nothing less than the capture of
Dublin within another week or fortnight!
From Vinegar Hill the concerted movement was made against Newtonbarry,
on the 2nd of June, the rebels advancing by both banks of the Slaney,
under cover of a six-pounder—the only gun they had with them. The
detachment in command of the beautiful little town, half hidden in its
leafy valley, was from 600 to 800 strong, with a troop of dragoons, and
two battalion guns, under command of Colonel L'Estrange; these, after a
sharp fusilade on both sides, were driven out, but the assailants,
instead of following up the blow, dispersed for plunder or refreshment,
were attacked in turn, and compelled to retreat, with a reported loss
of 400 killed. Three days later, however, a still more important
action, and a yet more disastrous repulse from the self-same cause,
took place at New Ross, on the Barrow.
The garrison of Ross, on the morning of the 5th of June, when General
Harvey appeared before it, consisted of 1,400 men—Dublin, Meath,
Donegal, and Clare militia, Mid-Lothian fencibles, and English
artillery. General Johnson, a veteran soldier, was in command, and the
place, strong in its well preserved old walls, had not heard a shot
fired in anger since the time of Cromwell. Harvey was reported to have
with him 20,000 men; but if we allow for the exaggeration of numbers
common to all such movements, we may, perhaps, deduct one-half, and
still leave him at the head of a formidable force—10,000 men, with
three field-pieces. Mr. Furlong, a favourite officer, being sent
forward to summon the town, was shot down by a sentinel, and the attack
began. The main point of assault was the gate known as "three bullet
gate," and the hour, five o'clock of the lovely summer's morning. The
obstinacy with which the town was contested, may be judged from the
fact, that the fighting continued for nearly ten hours, with the
interruption of an hour or two at noon. This was the fatal interruption
for the rebels. They had, at a heavy cost, driven out the royalists,
with the loss of a colonel (Lord Mountjoy), three captains, and above
200 men killed: but of their friends and comrades treble the number had
fallen. Still the town, an object of the first importance, was theirs,
when worn out with heat, fatigue, and fasting since sunrise, they
indulged themselves in the luxury of a deep unmeasured carouse. The
fugitive garrison finding themselves unpursued, halted to breathe on
the Kilkenny bank of the river, were rallied by the veteran Johnson,
and led back again across the bridge, taking the surprised revellers
completely unprepared. A cry was raised that this was a fresh force
from Waterford; the disorganised multitude endeavoured to rally in
turn, but before the leaders could collect their men, the town was once
more in possession of the Bang's troops. The rebels, in their turn,
unpursued by their exhausted enemies, fell back upon their camping
ground of the night before, at Corbet hill and Slieve-kielter. At the
latter, Father Philip Roche, dissatisfied with Harvey's management,
established a separate command, which he transferred to a layman of his
own name, Edward Roche, with whom he continued to act and advise during
the remainder of this memorable month.
The summer of 1798 was, for an Irish summer, remarkably dry and warm.
The heavy Atlantic rains which at all seasons are poured out upon that
soil, seemed suspended in favour of the insurgent multitudes, amounting
to 30,000, or 40,000 at the highest, who, on the different hill
summits, posted their nightly sentinels, and threw themselves down on
turf and heather to snatch a short repose. The kindling of a beacon,
the lowing of cattle, or the hurried arrival of scout or messenger,
hardly interfered with slumbers which the fatigues of the day, and,
unhappily also, the potations of the night rendered doubly deep. An
early morning mass mustered all the Catholics, unless the very
depraved, to the chaplain's tent—for several of the officers, and the
chaplains always were supplied with tents; and then a hasty meal was
snatched before the sun was fairly above the horizon, and the day's
work commenced. The endurance exhibited by the rebels, their personal
strength, swiftness and agility; their tenacity of life, and the ease
with which their worst wounds were healed, excited the astonishment of
the surgeons and officers of the regular army. The truth is, that the
virtuous lives led by that peaceful peasantry before the outbreak,
enabled them to withstand privations and hardships under which the
better fed and better clad Irish yeomen and English guardsmen would
have sunk prostrate in a week.
Several signs now marked the turning of the tide against the men of
Wexford. Waterford did not rise after the battle of Ross; while
Munster, generally, was left to undecided councils, or held back in
hopes of another French expedition. The first week of June had passed
over, and neither northward nor westward was there any movement
formidable enough to draw off from the devoted county the combined
armies which were now directed against its camps. A gunboat fleet lined
the coast from Bannow round to Wicklow, which soon after appeared off
Wexford bar, and forced an entrance into the harbour. A few days
earlier, General Needham marched from Dublin, and took up his position
at Arklow, at the head of a force variously stated at 1,500 to 2,000
men, composed of 120 cavalry under Sir Watkyn Wynne, two brigades of
militia under Colonels Cope and Maxwell, and a brigade of English and
Scotch fencibles under Colonel Skerrett. There were also at Arklow
about 300 of the Wexford and Wicklow mounted yeomanry raised by Lord
Wicklow, Lord Mountnorris, and other gentlemen of the neighbourhood.
Early on the morning of the 9th of June the northern division of the
rebels left Gorey in two columns, in order if possible to drive this
force from Arklow. One body proceeding by the coast road hoped to turn
the English position by way of the strand, the other taking the inner
line of the Dublin road, was to assail the town at its upper or inland
suburb. But General Needham had made the most of his two days'
possession; barricades were erected across the road, and at the
entrance to the main street; the graveyard and bridge commanding the
approach by the shore road were mounted with ordnance; the cavalry were
posted where they could best operate, near the strand; the barrack wall
was lined with a _banquette_ or stage, from which the musketeers could
pour their fire with the greatest advantage, and every other precaution
taken to give the rebels a warm reception. The action commenced early
in the afternoon, and lasted till eight in the evening—five or six
hours. The inland column suffered most severely from the marksmen on
the _banquette_, and the gallant Father Michael Murphy, whom his
followers believed to be invulnerable, fell leading them on to the
charge for the third time. On the side of the sea, Esmond Kyan was
badly wounded in the arm, which he was subsequently obliged to have
amputated, and though the fearless Shilmaliers drove the cavalry into
and over the Avoca, discipline and ordnance prevailed once again over
numbers and courage. As night fell, the assailants retired slowly
towards Coolgreney, carrying off nine carloads of their wounded, and
leaving, perhaps, as many more on the field; their loss was variously
reported from 700 to 1,000, and even 1,500. The opposite force returned
less than 100 killed, including Captain Knox, and about as many
wounded. The repulse was even more than that at Ross, dispiriting to
the rebels, who, as a last resort, now decided to concentrate all their
strength on the favourite position at Vinegar Hill.
Against this encampment, therefore, the entire available force of
regulars and militia within fifty miles of the spot were concentrated
by orders of Lord Lake, the Commander-in-Chief. General Dundas from
Wicklow was to join General Loftus at Carnew on the 18th; General
Needham was to advance simultaneously to Gorey; General Sir Henry
Johnson to unite at Old Ross with Sir James Duff from Carlow; Sir
Charles Asgill was to occupy Gore's bridge and Borris; Sir John Moore
was to land at Ballyhack ferry, march to Foulke's Mill, and united with
Johnson and Duff, to assail the rebel camp on Carrickbyrne. These
various movements ordered on the 16th, were to be completed by the
20th, on which day, from their various new positions, the entire force,
led by these six general officers, was to surround Vinegar Hill, and
make a simultaneous attack upon the last stronghold of the Wexford
rebellion.
This elaborate plan failed of complete execution in two points.
_First_, the camp on Carrickbyrne, instead of waiting the attack, sent
down its fighting men to Foulke's Mill, where, in the afternoon of the
20th they beat up Sir John Moore's quarters, and maintained from 3
o'clock till dark, what that officer calls "a pretty sharp action."
Several times they were repulsed and again formed behind the ditches
and renewed the conflict; but the arrival of two fresh regiments, under
Lord Dalhousie, taught them that there was no farther chance of
victory. By this affair, however, though at a heavy cost, they had
prevented the junction of all the troops, and, not without
satisfaction, they now followed the two Roches, the priest and the
layman, to the original position of the mountain of Forth; Sir John
Moore, on his part, taking the same direction, until he halted within
sight of the walls of Wexford. The other departure from Lord Lake's
plan was on the side of General Needham, who was ordered to approach
the point of attack by the circuitous route of Oulart, but who did not
come up in time to complete the investment of the hill.
On the morning of the appointed day, about 13,000 royal troops were in
movement against the 20,000 rebels whom they intended to dislodge. Sir
James Duff obtained possession of an eminence which commanded the lower
line of the rebel encampment, and from this point a brisk cannonade was
opened against the opposite force; at the same time the columns of
Lake, Wilford, Dundas, and Johnson, pushed up the south-eastern,
northern and western sides of the eminence, partially covered by the
fire of these guns, so advantageously placed. After an hour and a
half's desperate fighting, the rebels broke and fled by the unguarded
side of the hill. Their rout was complete, and many were cut down by
the cavalry, as they pressed in dense masses on each other, over the
level fields and out on the open highways. Still this action was far
from being one of the most fatal as to loss of life, fought in that
county; the rebel dead were numbered only at 400, and the royalists
killed and wounded at less than half that number.
It was the last considerable action of the Wexford rising, and all the
consequences which followed being attributed arbitrarily to this cause,
helped to invest it with a disproportionate importance. The only leader
lost on the rebel side was Father Clinch of Enniscorthy, who
encountered Lord Roden hand to hand in the retreat, but who, while
engaged with his lordship whom he wounded, was shot down by a trooper.
The disorganization, however, which followed on the dispersion, was
irreparable. One column had taken the road by Gorey to the mountains of
Wicklow—another to Wexford, where they split into two parts, a portion
crossing the Slaney into the sea-coast parishes, and facing northward
by the shore road, the other falling back on "the three rocks"
encampment, where the Messrs. Roche held together a fragment of their
former command. Wexford town, on the 22nd, was abandoned to Lord Lake,
who established himself in the house of Governor Keogh, the owner being
lodged in the common jail. Within the week, Bagenal Harvey, Father
Philip Roche, and Kelly of Killane, had surrendered in despair, while
Messrs. Grogan and Colclough, who had secreted themselves in a cave in
the great Saltee Island, were discovered, and conducted to the same
prison. Notwithstanding the capitulation agreed to by Lord
Kingsborough, the execution and decapitation of all these gentlemen
speedily followed, and their ghastly faces looked down for many a day
from the iron spikes above the entrance of Wexford Court House. Mr.
Esmond Kyan, the popular hero of the district, as merciful as brave,
was discovered some time subsequently paying a stealthy visit to his
family; he was put to death on the spot, and his body, weighted with
heavy stones, thrown into the harbour. A few mornings afterwards the
incoming tide deposited it close by the dwelling of his father-in-law,
and the rites of Christian burial, so dear to all his race, were
hurriedly rendered to the beloved remains.
The insurrection in this county, while it abounded in instances of
individual and general heroism, was stained also, on both sides, by
many acts of diabolical cruelty. The aggressors, both in time and in
crime were the yeomanry and military; but the popular movement dragged
wretches to the surface who delighted in repaying torture with torture,
and death with death. The butcheries of Dunlavin and Carnew were repaid
by the massacres at Scullabogue and Wexford bridge, in the former of
which 110, and in the latter 35 or 40 persons were put to death in cold
blood, by the monsters who absented themselves from the battles of Ross
and Vinegar Hill. The executions at Wexford bridge would probably have
been swelled to double the number, had not Father Corrin, one of the
priests of the town, rushing in between his Protestant neighbours and
the ferocious Captain Dixon, and summoning all present to pray, invoked
the Almighty "to show them the same mercy" they showed their prisoners.
This awful supplication calmed even that savage rabble, and no further
execution took place. Nearly forty years afterwards, Captain Kellet, of
Clonard, ancestor of the Arctic discoverer, and others whom he had
rescued from the very grasp of the executioner, followed to the grave
that revered and devoted minister of mercy!
It would be a profitless task to draw out a parallel of the crimes
committed on both sides. Two facts only need be recorded: that although
from 1798 to 1800, not less than _sixty-five_ places of Catholic
worship were demolished or burned in Leinster, (twenty-two of which
were in Wexford county), only _one_ Protestant Church, that of Old
Ross, was destroyed in retaliation; and that although towards men,
especially men in arms, the rebels acted on the fierce Mosaic maxim of
"an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," no outrage upon women is
laid to their charge, even by their most exasperated enemies.